First thereís Black Friday, followed by Cyber Monday. If youíre participating in online shopping, there are things you can do to stay safe.

Since the Christmas season is fast approaching, millions of people will be shopping online. An article from action3news.com stated that nearly 100 million people participated on Cyber Monday last year, according to stats from the National Retail Federation. Itís expected that the number will be higher this year. To protect yourself from identity theft, hereís some useful tips Iíve compiled over the months:

. donít give out your social insurance number or birth date. These things arenít necessary for retailers.

. donít do an engine search to find the website you want. Type in their address directly, so you wonít end up at some place posing as the site you want.

. monitor your transactions closely and remember, youíre entitled to a free credit report once a year. For more info, go to www.annualcreditreport.com

. update the privacy settings on your social networking accounts, and be diligent about changing passwords.

. donít shop at a public Wi-Fi connection. Hackers can tap into the hot spots and steal your information.

. look for an address that begins with https. The Ďsí helps ensure that your information will be passed along in a secure manner. Also look for the little padlock symbol, which indicates that strong security measures have been taken to protect the site.

An article by Byron Acohido in usatoday.com offers up another side to the coin. The prevalence and publicity surrounding identity theft and cyber crime may actually keep people from shopping online as much as they were last year. The National Cyber Security Alliance conducted an online survey of nearly 3,500 American adults. The results showed that 64% of the respondents hadnít made an online purchase because of security concerns. 60% said they werenít sure the websites were secure. 51.4% were worried about providing any information to the website, and 48.% of participants thought the website requested more personal information than was needed. Interestingly, though, more Americans than ever are shopping from their mobile phones. To read the whole article, go to http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/11/cyberscams-identity-theft-cause-shoppers-to-be-wary-about-online-shopping--/1

Happy shopping, and stay safe out there!

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